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Monday, October 16, 2006

Counting coup

Friday afternoon is when they pick up the edge of that big Portland City Hall rug and sweep stuff underneath. Last week it was at 3:38 p.m. on Friday that the public notice went out on this: an abrupt and startling switch of the city's water billing functions from the Revenue Bureau back to the Water Bureau.

In any other town, this wouldn't be news, but in Portland, where water billing has become one of the most expensive screwups in city history, it's worth noting (or covering up). Particularly since I seem to remember that the city had recently spent several million dollars on consultants who told them they needed to set up a unified "revenue bureau," and that these city workers should be under the city's Office of Management and Finance. The process of putting them there was quite a ways down the track... or so I thought.

Anyway, this is an apparent victory for Fireman Randy, who really seems to be relishing his role as the Water Bureau commissioner. I know he's never liked the way water is billed, and you can expect to see some changes now that he and the mayor have given him back the billing personnel. At some point, I suspect that your water bill and your sewer bill are going to be separate.

Comments (6)

As someone who arrived in Portland after this whole Water Bureau billing flap began and thus doesn't understand the intricacies... What's so difficult about supplying water that it requires extraordinary accounting and billing software?

Jack,
Remember when they changed their bills from remit to the water bureau to remit to the City of Portland Utilities? That was during their quest for PGE. I think they had visions of grandeur of expanding the city's control over more and more utilities. PGE flopped, and it's back to water billing.

Clay,
For some background on the water billing debacle go to the archives of Brainstorm NW magazine (brainstormnw.com), July 2003, and read my essay "Dripping Dollars".

Clay,
It only becomes difficult in Portland. Here we have a system designed in honor of Rube Goldberg, with a given purpose to make it impossible to know where the money comes from and where the money goes. Thanks to some diligent sleuths, the truth about spending eventually is made public.

Unfortunately, it's often during or after our esteemed mayor and councilors have signed "homer" contracts with Portland's "power brokers."

Further more... once they've given away tens of millions of dollars of present and future tax revenues they'll ask us to give them more money "for my children's future."

Because off-the-shelf just isn't good enough for Portland. We're special, different, and weird.

From the 7/6/00 Oregonian:

Commissioner Erik Sten, who oversees the Water Bureau, defended the computer system, saying it is largely working despite being "the first system of its kind in the country." Large computer changeovers are notorious for unforeseen glitches, he said. And the bureau's computer problems, while "disappointing," are fixable.

Some commissioners alarmed

But the problems have clearly alarmed the rest of the council, especially Commissioner Dan Saltzman. Saltzman oversees the Bureau of Environmental Services, the city's sewer agency, which recommended against Severn Trent in 1997 and called its software "vaporware."

Jack writes>>>at some point, I suspect that your water bill and your sewer bill are going to be separate

Sigh. I hope not. As a Portland taxpayer, I would then have to pay for two huge billing departments, instead of one...

As a rule I'm biased toward decentralized systems. However, when it comes to billing departments I've worked in too many not to understand why, in well-run companies, they are uniformly run as centralized organizations. You just get too many efficiencies -- both in cost and delivery -- from that model when you're talking collecting money -- not to do it that way.

That's why, however sweet it might be, you're not going to get separate bills from each College department you are taking classes from. Imagine! Or separate bills from each department you shop in at Macy's...

"Hi, I'm Anne, of Macy's Better Woman's Shoes Credit Cards. I'm calling you because you're over your card limit, and missed your recent payment on the last pair of shoes you bought. What? You paid it? No Madam, sorry, that was your Men's Fine Furnishings bill. Different department Madam. Those bills are entirely separate from the Women's Better Shoes Credit Card bills."

"I'm sorry, Madam. I can't do anything about the increase in additional charges. We are spending a great deal to bring you the increased services of separate billing departments for every division. Our focus groups indicate you will feel a warm and friendly regard for Macy's, now that you have the individual "face" of Better Woman's Shoes, on your bill."

The disease "pollyanism" is rampant in Portland. Every city official, many employees, PDC, METRO, they all want to "be the first". First in bio-tech, bi-cycle innovations, bio-fuels, bi-state transportation solutions, bi-passes, bi-gender recognition, bi-o-shere preservation legislation.....bi the way, would someone please fix my 130 year old street and sewer/water system?

Road Work

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